


Try Harder Next Time

by snarkasaurus



Series: Fictober 2018 [14]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Car Accidents, Gen, Head Injury, Hospitalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 02:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16547159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkasaurus/pseuds/snarkasaurus
Summary: Fictober 2018 Day 13. Stiles gets in a car wreck and scares the crap out of everyone.





	Try Harder Next Time

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to keep things kind of vague, but I can tell you that it IS okay for people to sleep after a concussion, as long as they're responsive and pupils are equal and reactive, etc., prior to them sleeping. If they stay in the hospital, they're likely to be woken up at intervals to check and make sure they stay reactive. Everything else is at the whim of the author, who is a teacher and a writer, not a nurse or a doctor. Please accept any factual errors as the error of quick writing and forgive me!

Stiles lay pale and motionless against the bleached white pillow case. His closed eyes look bruised. White gauze held bandages in place all over his body: around his head, up and down both arms, across his ribs. The clear cannula in his nose and tubing pressed lightly against his cheeks and hooked around his ears was disconcerting, but Sheriff Noah Stilinski was relieved it wasn’t a ventilator tube. 

The door opened behind him and Melissa slipped in. “Hey,” she murmured, crossing to stand next to him. “He’ll be okay, Noah.” 

Noah sucked in a shaky breath. “I know. The doctor said it was mostly superficial damage to his arms. A couple of bruised ribs, one cracked. That the head wound was the big worry, but it looks like he’ll be okay.” He didn’t move, though. Didn’t look away from that pale face. 

“But you’re wondering why he’s asleep right now?” she asked. “Since it was a head wound?” 

“Part of me is, yeah.” 

Melissa patted his shoulder. “It’s mostly about the pain killers we have him on. The gash has been sewn up, we’ve taken some CTs and there doesn’t seem to be anything concerning. It’s a concussion and we’re going to watch him for a few days here.” She squeezed Noah’s shoulder this time, and he looked at her. “And we’re going to be waking him up periodically to make sure he’s okay. In fact, that’s why I’m here. Well, one reason.” 

Noah frowned at her slightly. “One?” 

“There is an entire pack of nervous, scared werewolves out in my waiting room,” Melissa said dryly. Would you be willing to let them come back,” and seeing the look on Noah’s face, she added hastily, “one, maybe two at a time, not all at once. They need the reassurance that he’s going to be okay.”

Noah looked back down at his son, trying not to see any parallels between his dead wife and his injured child. “Yeah. Yeah, I can understand that. Not all at once, but they can come back, see him.” 

“Thank you.” Melissa squeezed his shoulder again. “I’ll be back in just a second with the first one, and I’ll wake him up then.” She left the room. 

Noah continued to watch Stiles, listening to the steady, reassuring beep of the heart monitor. The call he’d gotten had stopped his heart for one terrible, horrible eternal moment: Stiles was in a car wreck, and Sheriff Stilinski needed to meet the ambulance at the hospital. 

Aside from the terror of knowing Stiles was hurt, there was a part of Noah that didn’t quite grasp what was going on. A car crash? A normal, mundane wreck was the thing to put Stiles into the hospital? Considering all of the things he dealt with on a daily basis, it didn’t seem quite right that the thing to take Stiles down was another car. 

The door opened again, and three sets of footsteps told Noah that she had managed to limit the first round of visitors to just two. He looked over his shoulder and saw Scott and Derek following Melissa. That made sense. “Hey,” he said. It came out hoarse, more than his voice had sounded when he was talking to Melissa. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey. Thanks for...thank you.” 

“He’s my best friend, Sheriff,” Scott said quietly, coming to stand next to Noah. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.” He looked over at Derek who moved to the other side of the bed, near the foot, his eyes intent on Stiles’ pale, still face. He didn’t have time to do more than take in the expression on Derek’s face: pain, frustration, fear, longing? That was interesting… before Melissa was moving up toward Stiles’ head and leaning slightly over him.

“Stiles,” she said softly, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Stiles, I need you to wake up for me.” 

At first, there was no response. Even though Noah knew Stiles was difficult to wake up when he didn’t want to be awake, he couldn’t help the sharp spike of fear that surged through him. Melissa kept at it, though, and it didn’t take long before Stiles’ eyes were fluttering open. Noah felt tension ease out of his shoulders at that, and could feel some of the same seep out of Scott standing next to him. 

“Hey there, sunshine,” Melissa said, smiling down at Stiles. “Thought I said I didn’t want to see you back here again.” 

Stiles gave her a ghost of a smile before grimacing. “You know...me. Contrary.” 

Melissa laughed softly, pulling a penlight out of her scrubs pocket. “You are that. “I’m going to check your pupils now. Bright light.” She flashed the light on first one pupil and then the other, smiling when she was done. “Perfect. How’s your pain level?” 

“Hurts. Ribs hurt...Don’t remember...why?” Each phrase was punctuated by shallow breathing, though not a breathlessness that worried Noah. It wasn’t anything he didn’t recognize from his own bout with cracked ribs when he was in college. He felt his shoulders relax a little more. 

“You were in a car accident,” Noah said quietly, pleased with how Stiles’ eyes tracked immediately, if a little fuzzily, to his face. “A deer jumped out in front of, and in your effort to avoid it, you hit the gravel shoulder, overcorrected, and flipped the jeep.” 

There was a minute or two while Stiles absorbed the sentence. “Jeep...totalled?” 

“It is, kid. I’m so sorry.” They wouldn’t tell him until later that he hadn’t managed to miss the deer after all, which was why the jeep had flipped at all. Turned out that even a jeep’s ability was no match for 200lb deer slamming into it when it was already off balance. 

Stiles closed his eyes again, and was clearly working not to get too upset. Noah figured it probably hurt, even with the painkillers. Then Stiles’ eyes flew open and he was looking down the length of his body at Derek. Noah looked, too, and noticed that Derek had worked his hand under the blanket and seemed to be grasping Stiles’ ankle. 

“Thanks,” Stiles said. “That helps.” 

“You’re welcome,” Derek said, his voice very quiet. 

Melissa gently touched an unbandaged portion of Stiles’ arm. “Everyone else is out in the waiting room, wanting to see you. Do you want to see them?” 

Stiles started to nod, grimaced, and said instead, “Yeah. They won’t give you any peace if you don’t.” 

Noah noticed that he was speaking more easily, though his breathing was still shallow. He looked curiously at Derek again, who was now crouching next to the bed, his hand still under the blanket. Was he doing the pain sucking thingy that Stiles had once mentioned? He had to be… “I need to use the facilities and call the station,” he said, looking back at his son and then up at Melissa. “I’ll be back in about ten minutes. Think that’ll be long enough to cycle some of those lunatics in and out of here?” 

Melissa snorted. “I’ll make it be enough. They only need to see him and reassure themselves he isn’t dead.” She looked down at Stiles. “You better not make a habit of this, kiddo. I told you not to come back.” 

“I tried!” he protested weakly. 

“Try harder next time,” she retorted, but she leaned down and kissed his cheek. “You’re going to be just fine. Sore for a good while, and here for a day or two so we can keep an eye on your head injury, but you’re going to be just fine.”


End file.
